Where the scholar and the fan collide

Gender Warriors: Reading Contemporary Urban Fantasy is available. I am very proud of the work that Melissa Anyiwo and I did in this text, and our contributors did a phenomenal job with the text. Steve Anyiwo created another amazing piece of art for the cover.

This text is dedicated to the memory of our brilliant friend and fellow aca-superheroine Rho Nichol. In so many ways, this book is informed by our conversations over the years about the genre and the gendered implications at the heart of its creation and reception.

You can check it out on Brill’s webpage, or you can buy it from Amazon. The book is great for fun reading, but it’s also designed to teach. Please consider adapting it in your courses if you teach.

On Halloween (10/31/2017), I gave a talk: “Witches and Other Magical Creatures: Gender and Witchcraft through the Ages.” We covered a lot of ground but couldn’t cover it all. I realized after the talk that I missed talking about Eve’s Bayou and the exploration of prophesy and magic that Kasi Lemmons creates in one of my favorite Southern Gothic Horror films.

In addition to my focus on feminist horror films for my 31 Days of Horror film watching (which you can find here), I thought I’d offer some other recommendations in honor of the best month of the year, October, and my favorite holiday, Halloween. October is the month when everyone is a horror fan (for some of us it’s a year-round thing). If you’re looking for some must read or watch, check out the list below. (Note: None of the films I’m featuring in my Feminist Horror #31DaysOfHorror will be on the below list.)

The Purge: Election Year (2016, director James DeMonaco), I would recommend the entire series but Election Year was particularly poignant in light of our current political climate, available to rent on Amazon and Vudu

It’s that time of the year…my favorite month…my favorite holiday. Happy Samhain month everyone! It means #31daysofHalloween. As a horror film scholar, it also means #31DaysofHorror, which is a yearly challenge to watch a horror film a day. This year I’m doing 31 horror films but with my twist: 31 feminist horror films. In brief, feminist horror films examine elements of gender and sexuality and also explore the cultural systems that build and buttress those gender and sexual social boundaries. (Want a longer explanation of feminist horror full with specific film analysis. Well it’s coming soon in the form of my dissertation. Or you can check out my slightly longer explanation here.)

The one very practical criteria for my viewing list was that I had to have easy access to the film, which means it is either streaming somewhere that I subscribe to or I own a copy of the film. Most of the films on the list are full-length feature films, but a few are short films by some great indie filmmakers. Pre-warning though, a couple I haven’t seen before, but they were recommended as feminist horror films that I might like.

XX (Anthology directors: Jovanka Vuckovic, Annie Clark, Roxanne Benjamin, and Karyn Kusama, 2017), if you’d like to read my initial reaction you can find it here, available on Netflix.

I feel as if I could write a post on issues surrounding representation in popular culture at least weekly. This isn’t too shocking given that I spend most of my time thinking, writing, and presenting/teaching on this topic. We’ll call this post the early summer 2017 edition of why we need to see more representation of diverse identities in popular culture. There are a few catalysts that keep sparking this for me: Patty Jenkins’s Wonder Woman, Marvel’s Black Panther, and Roxane Gay’s Hunger. Each has generated a plethora of think-pieces, social media reactions, and criticism (some incredibly fair and some downright bizarre).

Even before Wonder Womancame out there was a ton of buzz from excitement to controversy. For this film scholar, the weirdest and most infuriating were the pieces that said what a big gamble the studio was taken on Patty Jenkins as a director. Jenkins directed the film Monster (2003) for which Charlize Theron won the Best Actress Oscar, so it is not at all a gamble, which to be clear many studios have taken on a hell of a lot of male directors without ever actually calling that a game. Given that DC seemed to put absolutely no marketing behind Wonder Woman, it left a lot of me very worried about how well the film would do overall but also that the film would be bad, which would mean we’d not see a woman-directed superhero movie again for a long time. Many fans (mostly women) had a great deal of [guarded] optimism and a large amount of hope riding on this film.

The experience of watching Wonder Woman was absolute joy. I, like many women film-goers, cried throughout the film, especially during the battle on the beach watching the spectacular real-life superhero women playing Amazons and during Diana’s solo stride across No Man’s Land. After I left the theatre I have spent a lot of time thinking about those tears. As many have argued, those tears were, first, a reaction to seeing strong and brilliant women on screen and not framed by the male gaze but framed as subjects…as heroes. I have seen the movie a few more times in the theatre and have thought a great deal about those tears as they have rolled down my cheeks each time I have seen the film. What I realized is that the tears I was shedding grew out of the power of representation. The film highlights women being powerful, flawed, covered in scars and wrinkles, while their thighs jiggled visibly on screen, which is a stunning departure from the air-brushed perfection of most celluloid women.

But more than that literal visible representation of complex and complicated women, these two moments felt like stunning metaphors to the life of a feminist scholar/activist. For me and many of the strong feminist scholars I know, we work in isolation on our campuses, communities, and workplaces because a great deal of American culture is hostile to feminism and social justice activism. When we are very lucky, we find feminist and social justice oriented communities in which we can work. In my experiences those communities are built online, at conferences, and at conventions, where we discover other folks who “get” our work—who challenge us to strengthen that work and our commitment to it. When we can be with our community of Amazons, we are stronger, more powerful, and unbeatable, but we often must leave that supportive intellectual environment to return to our day-to-day worlds, in which we are Diana “going first” on our campuses/workplaces often understanding that we will have to dodge the proverbial bombs and bullets of making our campuses/workplaces safer, more open environments. There’s a moment when Diana is charging across No Man’s Land alone because no one else will take the risk and Steve Trevor exclaims to the others “She’s drawing all their fire.” It is only after this that the men spring in to battle. This line could be utter in so much of the social justice work that I see happening. Certain folks on our campuses/in our workplaces draw all the fire, as they push for equity and justice. In my experience, this burden falls predominantly to marginalized groups of people, especially Black women, Latina women, people of color, queer folks. As I have thought about the film, I continue to be struck by how important this film is at the surface representation on screen level and these deeper philosophical levels. Wonder Woman has flaws, especially in how it dealt with race and the erasure of Black women and women of color. A brilliant conversation between Valerie Complex and Robert A. Jones, from Son of Baldwin, maps out this erasure, which I would encourage everyone to read. I hope that any sequel that is made will redress that lack of racial representation and be more explicit in representing queerness, which is a key aspect of the Amazonian culture and of Diana’s character. The film though was a powerful example for me of why we need more complicated and nuanced women in our media.

Just as Wonder Woman was about to hit the theatres, Marvel announced (May 17, 2017) that it would be ending its Black Panther comic book series. This move was utterly baffling, as it is a great series, which has not had enough of a run yet and is penned by the brilliant Ta-Nehisi Coates. Black Panther/T’Challa has long been one of my favorite comic book characters and the entire country of Wakanda is fascinating with all the scientific and technological innovations. For me, the most intriguing part of the Wakandan world is the Dora Milaje, an all-female group of warriors who act as protection and advisors to the Wakandan leaders. We briefly had the ability to dive deeper into the world of the Dora Milaje in the World of Wakanda—written by Coates and Roxane Gay—but in an infuriating move, Marvel announced on June 12 that it would end after only six issues. The timing of these two cancellations is bizarre, especially knowing that the Black Panther film is set to hit theatres in February 2018.

In the midst of all of this controversy, the first teaser for Black Panther was released (June 9, 2017), and it was amazing. I’m so excited for this film and had some tears for this as well because seeing bad-ass Black women kick ass is precisely what I need. This film features some of my favorite actresses, Danai Gurira, Angela Bassett, and Lupita Nyong’o, as well as just an overall amazing cast. Seeing such a strong cast of Black characters and actors is a revelation for issues of representation. The joy of the Blerd community specifically and the Black community generally over the trailer reminded me yet again how important that representation on screen and in our entertainment is. With just a one minute and fifty-three second teaser trailer, Black Panther indicated to viewers that they should be prepared for director Ryan Coogler to take them on a thrilling adventure with excellent acting. Though we know little about the overall plot of the film, we’re in for a really great experience.

This summer has been a bit of a revelation about the importance of representation across a broad spectrum of identities for me. With the release of Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Bodyby Roxane Gay, a plethora of commentary has been whizzing about, covering topics of sexual violence, bodies, and fatness/obesity. I was struck reading Hunger by how frequently I found myself wanting to just write the word yes with a lot of exclamation points after it. This book was strikingly personal and all too familiar. Though I often think about the lack of representation of women of size in media, I hadn’t really realized how much this erasure really impacted me until I was reading the book. Many folks have pointed me toward This is Us as a positive representation of a woman of size (character of Kate Pearson). I will admit that I could not stick with that show after a few episodes because of the storyline of Kate. I absolutely stand behind the spectacular Chrissy Metz, who is a beautiful and wonderful actress playing that role with a lot of heart, but the writers did the character a disservice, meaning that I only made it through three episodes. Gay’s exploration of her challenges of being a woman of size, the struggle to lose weight, and her on-going battle to accept and love herself is profound and necessary. I needed this conversation, but I also discovered that I want more of this conversation and more representation of people of size and not in the exploitative Biggest Loser way.

Moreover, reading Gay’s narrative of the aftermath of sexual violence was stunning for me. We see sexual violence used as a plot tool in media all the time, but we never see the core ways that it impacts a life forever after the assault. We see fiction and film writers taking the easy way out all the time of using weaponized sexual violence of women to give male characters “development” or female characters a reason to be violent, but we rarely see someone struggling with the trauma in ways that alter the very make up of their being. How many times have survivors, violence prevention experts, fans, and scholars asked for media to stop using sexual violence as a plot device? I have lost count at this point, and yet, it continues with new examples all the time (I’m looking at you new The Mist adaptation on Spike). Gay’s book is a memoir and, therefore, compels a deep exploration, but it also reminded me precisely why I need media portrayals of sexual violence to be more nuanced.

These three examples of media from this summer remind me just how crucial representations of all identities are. To see oneself reflected through media is to see that you can…you can survive…you can be successful…you can be a hero, a scientist, a leader, a badass-ass-kicking-warrior woman, a scholar, and so much more. That is what representation does. This is why art and media matter.

U. Melissa Anyiwo and I are issuing a call for chapters for a text, Gender Warriors: Reading Contemporary Urban Fantasy, that has been accepted for publication with Sense Publishers as a part of their Teaching Genderseries.

Call for ChaptersUrban fantasy, a genre that draws from high fantasy, horror, and romance, came into its own in the mid-1980s, but critical work on the topic has been sadly lacking, found scattered throughout texts on related genres. In addressing issues of urban fantasy, there is a recurring theme: the problem of gender. Issues of gender have always permeated the reception of authorship and the definition of genre itself; in this case, it is not enough to just read urban fantasy in opposition to high fantasy but to denote it in contrast to its sister genres of paranormal romance, alternate histories, and steampunk literature. Moreover, the concepts and complications of urban fantasy continue when the genre moves from page to screen. This collection will, thus, examine and clarify several questions: What is urban fantasy? How does the genre complicate the performance and portrayals of gender? How do these discussions translate across page, stage, and screen?

From Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Black Widow in the Avengers series and beyond, urban fantasy introduces audiences to female protagonists who appear as independent action heroes freed from the constraints of traditional patriarchy, fighting in traditionally male worlds against uber-masculine foes. In conjunction with the rise of urban fantasy, the twenty-first century has witnessed an explosion of tough, physically strong, supernaturally enhanced women in the popular media—including films, television shows, comic books, and video games making this text a vital addition to a Popular Culture Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, Contemporary Culture, Sociology, Political Science, Queer Studies, Communications and more.

Gender Warriors: Reading Contemporary Urban Fantasy, under contract with Sense Publishers as part of their Teaching Gender Series, seeks classroom ready original essays from scholars with PhDs, which explicitly explore the world of urban fantasy. The volume aims to emphasize the constructions of gender and the way these interpretations reify our images of human beings and the ways in which we identify and manufacture the gendered and sexualized Other. We hope to open doorways to discussions about Otherness at the college level, serving as an alternative way to explore marginality through a framework that welcomes all students into the conversation. Thus, we ask that all chapters include a set of Discussion Questions and suggestions for further reading.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

Presentations of gender and the performance of femininity and masculinity in the Urban Fantasy Universe

Presentations of gender in the worlds of Marvel and DC Comics

Reinforcement or subversion of gendered norms

Female authorship/readership as genre-defying feminist texts

The limits of feminist expression in urban fantasy film (i.e. Underworld Series)

The Teaching Gender series publishes monographs, anthologies and reference books that deal centrally with gender and/or sexuality. The books are intended to be used in undergraduate and graduate classes across the disciplines. The series aims to promote social justice with an emphasis on feminist, multicultural and critical perspectives.

Now that I have had the opportunity to see Get Out a few times, I feel better equipped to write about it. I will begin by saying that everyone should see this film. (Watch the trailer.) It is an incredibly important commentary on contemporary racism in the United States and it does this through wit, compassion, humor, and a refusal to look away. Written and directed by Jordan Peele, likely best known for his comedy work on Key and Peele, Get Out is a horror film that taps into the psychological thriller/horror genre traditions but does so with some blurring into the realm of comedy. Peele worked with the horror juggernaut Blumhouse Productions. The performances of the actors are truly sublime, especially Daniel Kaluuya as Chris Washington (our protagonist), Betty Gabriel as Georgina, Lakeith Standfield as Andrew Logan King, and Milton “Lil Rel” Howery as Rod Williams. Get Out has exceeded the $100 million mark, which is brilliant given its production budget was $5 million. This film has had me thinking about it from the first trailer I saw and now having seen it a few times I’m thinking about it even more.

I do want to address the folks who are insisting that this film is a thriller, which is in part the distribution company’s marketing choices (I’m looking at you Universal). But this is largely because there is such a denigration and dismissal of the horror genre as a whole. This is my soapbox moment as a horror scholar, yes. Horror films are not all torture porn and gruesome deaths—though there is nothing wrong with those horror films, I know they aren’t for everyone. Horror films are complex and diverse group of genre traditions that disrupts the everyday and are recognizable as “horrifying” and relying upon physical and emotional violence (see the scholarship of Robin Means-Coleman, Kendall Phillips, and Isabel Pinedo). Additionally, the horror genre has a long history of being subversive and addressing social issues, calling attention to a myriad of cultural problems including racism and sexism. So I’ll say even if you don’t like horror films, please give this film a chance and please don’t re-genre it as a thriller when you do.

If you have not seen this film, I implore you to go see it and to stop reading this post right now because I’m going to talk plot pieces and I don’t want to spoil the film.

Again…stop reading if you haven’t seen it because spoilers are coming.

One of the key features of the film’s address of contemporary racism is the way Rose (Allison Williams) continually dismisses and deflects Chris’s (Daniel Kaluuya) concerns about race and their interracial relationship. Rose speaks for Chris and places him in danger through her actions when they are interacting with a white police officer without realizing the potential for harm that her behavior establishes. She refuses to listen to his concerns about her family’s reaction to his race because her family can’t possibly be racist…they’re liberals for goodness sake…they voted for Obama and would have done so for “a third time.” I have heard people say this statement (along with I date Black people or I have a Black friend) to disavow the racism and microaggressions they are perpetuating. Rose is the epitome of the white feminist, who refuses to see the need for intersectionality or the long-term issues with racism in the feminist movement. Aisha Harris keenly points out how dangerous white womanhood continues to be in her piece “The Most Terrifying Villain in Get Out is White Womanhood.”

Get Out addresses the insidiousness of liberal racism, specifically the ways in which white liberal folks have created self-replicating racist systems that shut Black folks out of them all while espousing supposedly calls for equality. In Get Out, this takes the form of rich white people literally stealing the bodies of Black people, which the white folks seem to believe is some sort of compliment about the physical superiority of the Black body. It is Hudson wanting to co-opt Chris Black gaze (his photography skills and his “eye” for reality in his art) and supplant his white sensibility and gaze for Chris’s racialized vision (by the nature of his existence as a Black man). This enslavement of the Black body also demonstrates the way in which slavery also crushes the spirit of the individual, living in the “Sunken Place” of degradation and invisibility. In his piece “Why Get Out Is the Best Movie Ever Made about Slavery,” Steven Thrasher writes, “It shows the intimate ways whiteness uses—indeed, the ways in which whiteness needs to use and use up—Black bodies for its continued existence.”

Throughout the film, Peele uses super-focused close up shots of Black faces (only Black faces). Often, in these shots, the faces are off-center in the frame and set at angles to the lens but these extreme close ups of these Black faces center the experiences of the Black folks in the film. One of the moments I was most struck by in this film is the moment Missy (Catherine Keener) hypnotizes Chris, and he is paralyzed (See below). In this moment in Missy’s study, Peele uses this close up on Chris frozen face to emphasize Chris’s humanity and Missy’s monstrosity. The only movement in the frame comes from the tears streaking down Chris’s cheeks, his eyes and mouth frozen open in fear. This is a classic horror film tactic to show terror but also the horrific nature of the monsters our hero is facing…the monster in this moment is the white woman wielding her power and training as a therapist as a weapon. Chris’s face is so compelling and Peele’s emphasis on Chris’s horror while discovering that he was right to be concerned about this visit to Rose’s family. Missy’s monstrosity, her villain status, is established while our audience identification with Chris is solidified.

Get Out is an amazing film that reifies our need to identify and dismantle the insidious nature of contemporary racism—racism that pretends it no longer exists and/or is a “conservative” and “rural” issue. It reminds us that we live in a racist culture that white folks have a responsibility to admit, address, and disassemble. Moreover, it’s a spectacular horror film that is creepy and atmospheric.